Criminal Division 36 of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judge Lee Jeong-yeop) on the 12th, in the first-instance trial of the treason case concerning former President Yoon Suk Yeol, found him guilty of general aiding-the-enemy and abuse of authority, and sentenced him to 30 years in prison, matching the term sought by the special counsel in the insurrection case. It also sentenced former Minister of National Defense Kim Yong-hyeon, indicted on the same charges, to 30 years; former Defense Counterintelligence Command chief Yeo In-hyeong to 15 years; and former Drone Operations Command chief Kim Yong-dae to three years in prison, suspended for five years. Having been sentenced to life imprisonment at first instance on insurrection charges, Yoon has now become the first former president also convicted of treason-related offenses. It can only be said that justice has prevailed.

The court stated, “Yoon Suk Yeol, Kim Yong-hyeon, and Yeo In-hyeong, while contriving to manufacture the legal prerequisites for proclaiming emergency martial law, made up their minds to create a national emergency by provoking North Korea so as to induce armed provocations, or provocations at a comparable level, against our military and people, and by heightening inter-Korean military tensions in order to secure justification and legitimacy,” adding, “They attempted to deliberately bring about a national emergency to use the authority to proclaim emergency martial law.” It held that, to create a pretext for declaring emergency martial law, they infiltrated unmanned aerial vehicles into Pyongyang and other areas multiple times to induce inter-Korean military clashes.

The court said that by provoking North Korea and providing a pretext for its provocations, Yoon and others created the risk of loss of life and property for the public and the military, and, by exposing the military’s drone capabilities to the North, harmed the Republic of Korea’s military interests. It went on, “North Korea did not carry out a strong provocation, but that is not thanks to Yoon Suk Yeol, Kim Yong-hyeon, or Yeo In-hyeong.” The point is that the North merely modulated its level of response, while Yoon and the others wished for a strong military provocation by the North.

It is chilling even to imagine what would have happened had such an attempt succeeded. From the phrases in former commander Yeo’s memo submitted as evidence by the special counsel for the insurrection case, “the final state is the normalization of a low-intensity drone conflict” and “minimum, a security crisis. maximum, Noah’s flood,” one can see that they had in mind even the possibility of a full-scale war between North and South. Even Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, who seized power through the December 12 military coup, did not dare attempt such a thing. It is no exaggeration to say that Yoon Suk Yeol is the worst president in history.

This ruling also carries significant implications for Yoon Suk Yeol’s insurrection trial. The first-instance bench for the insurrection case, the ‘Ji Gwi-yeon bench,’ did not accept the indictment claim that Yoon had been preparing emergency martial law since 2023 for a long-term dictatorship. It held that Yoon Suk Yeol, who believed that a National Assembly where the opposition held a majority was obstructing government operations through impeachment motions and budget cuts, around December 1, 2024 decided, ‘I can no longer endure this; even by mobilizing force, I will have to subdue the National Assembly,’ and that this view accords with the essence of the case.

However, if, according to the first-instance verdict on the treason case, Yoon had been infiltrating drones into Pyongyang and elsewhere since September 2024 to fabricate a pretext for declaring emergency martial law, then it is reasonable to see the point at which he began preparing insurrection as earlier than that. Yoon’s claim that impeachment motions by the massive opposition party and the like were the motive for proclaiming martial law should also be deemed false. This is an issue the appellate bench in the insurrection case must correct.

Yoon Suk Yeol played with fire, staking national safety and the people’s lives, for political self-interest. He gravely undermined national security. Yet the People Power Party, which never stops mouthing ‘security,’ has still not cut ties with the ‘Yoon Again’ camp, and it remained silent even about today’s ruling. One cannot help but ask whether they have any right to talk about national security at all.